Pikeman Archive
Thread: Armour vs counter-attack/evade/dodge/block mods, one or the other, both useful
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GTOfire
Sat Jan 31, 2004 10:31 am
#1
I'm cross-posting this in all the elite melee professions and hope to get replies from every type of player on this idea.
I'll try to make this post as elaborate and justified as possible, I really do believe this is an idea worth pondering 
The basic idea: much more evasions and counter-blows when not wearing armour, hardly any dodges with armour.
Why is this good?
Martial artists among you may agree with me that it's rather unlikely in an evenly matched fight you will both be swinging at the other, hitting each other without regard for the blows you suffer yourself. But this is exactly what's happening in SWG. Even a novice with just a little bit of training will be able to fend off incoming attacks to a point (though that point won't be very high of course ).
).What I'm looking forward to seeing is a much higher dodge and block rate in the game to reflect this. The next step would be animations to match a block or counter-attack to make melee fights look more interesting then two players or NPCs simply bashing away as mentioned.
However, armour does not allow you to move as freely and quickly as you are used to. The heavier the armour, the better the protection, the more restricted you are in movement. So you have to make a trade-off, either you retain your freedom and rely on your skills to evade incoming attacks, or you strap on your armour and take all the blows while you bash away, the armour will mitigate the damage they do.
What does this do?
An unarmoured swordsman will be much faster and agile then a heavily armoured opponent, so he can evade and counter-attack on a lot of the latter's blows. He will have to do his best to penetrate the armour though, and if he does get hit, it will hurt him greatly. In the end, they both match up equally. (in reality, you would tire out from constant blocking and evasion and lose, but if we can run 10 miles we can keep fighting). The unarmoured swordsman might also do special moves without the dreadful HAM cost to himself he would take with armour on.
This will also make blade fighters with armour piercing slightly better then unarmed fighters, IMHO as it should be. Of course there are many ways to beat an armed opponent, but when skills are equal, the guy with the sword has the upper hand. The difference will not be great though, because TKA has various moves to incapacitate an opponent to the ground and finish them off, not to mention a TKA's base speed is highest of all melee classes, so their bonus to evasion is higher.
The technical stuff:
Counter-attack/evade/dodge/block are all thrown into a single pool that isdirectly relatedwith your base attack speed, heavily influenced (and I do mean heavily) by your armour's total resists (composite will weigh heavier then ubese because the total resists are much higher, but you can tell from just the look of it that movement is difficult) and slightly influenced by your weapon's speed. A heavy powerhammer can't be raised to block incoming attacks as quick as a curved sword.
A succesful block removes 1 point from your weapon's condition. (just actual blocks, not dodges)
removal of the various dodge stat mods in the skill trees, the speed mods are to be spread relatively equally across all the boxes (much like Taming Wild Creatures has been done for CH)
in conclusion:
This allows skilled melee fighters to sacrifice their ability to take a lot of punches to gain the ability to evade them. Armour will still be heavily needed because at low levels, you won't be able to block very well yet. It would give the melee fighting gameplay more tension and 'realism' so to speak.
So, whaddayathink?
I've used unarmed and swordsman because those are in-game the two classes I've played so far (yet to do the other two) and because I am experienced with both forms of martial arts in real life.
GTOfire
Sat Jan 31, 2004 10:32 am
#2
I'm cross-posting this in all the elite melee professions and hope to get replies from every type of player on this idea.
I'll try to make this post as elaborate and justified as possible, I really do believe this is an idea worth pondering
The basic idea: much more evasions and counter-blows when not wearing armour, hardly any dodges with armour.
Why is this good?
Martial artists among you may agree with me that it's rather unlikely in an evenly matched fight you will both be swinging at the other, hitting each other without regard for the blows you suffer yourself. But this is exactly what's happening in SWG. Even a novice with just a little bit of training will be able to fend off incoming attacks to a point (though that point won't be very high of course ).
).What I'm looking forward to seeing is a much higher dodge and block rate in the game to reflect this. The next step would be animations to match a block or counter-attack to make melee fights look more interesting then two players or NPCs simply bashing away as mentioned.
However, armour does not allow you to move as freely and quickly as you are used to. The heavier the armour, the better the protection, the more restricted you are in movement. So you have to make a trade-off, either you retain your freedom and rely on your skills to evade incoming attacks, or you strap on your armour and take all the blows while you bash away, the armour will mitigate the damage they do.
What does this do?
An unarmoured swordsman will be much faster and agile then a heavily armoured opponent, so he can evade and counter-attack on a lot of the latter's blows. He will have to do his best to penetrate the armour though, and if he does get hit, it will hurt him greatly. In the end, they both match up equally. (in reality, you would tire out from constant blocking and evasion and lose, but if we can run 10 miles we can keep fighting). The unarmoured swordsman might also do special moves without the dreadful HAM cost to himself he would take with armour on.
This will also make blade fighters with armour piercing slightly better then unarmed fighters, IMHO as it should be. Of course there are many ways to beat an armed opponent, but when skills are equal, the guy with the sword has the upper hand. The difference will not be great though, because TKA has various moves to incapacitate an opponent to the ground and finish them off, not to mention a TKA's base speed is highest of all melee classes, so their bonus to evasion is higher.
The technical stuff:
Counter-attack/evade/dodge/block are all thrown into a single pool that isdirectly relatedwith your base attack speed, heavily influenced (and I do mean heavily) by your armour's total resists (composite will weigh heavier then ubese because the total resists are much higher, but you can tell from just the look of it that movement is difficult) and slightly influenced by your weapon's speed. A heavy powerhammer can't be raised to block incoming attacks as quick as a curved sword.
A succesful block removes 1 point from your weapon's condition. (just actual blocks, not dodges)
removal of the various dodge stat mods in the skill trees, the speed mods are to be spread relatively equally across all the boxes (much like Taming Wild Creatures has been done for CH).
in conclusion:
This allows skilled melee fighters to sacrifice their ability to take a lot of punches to gain the ability to evade them. Armour will still be heavily needed because at low levels, you won't be able to block very well yet. It would give the melee fighting gameplay more tension and 'realism' so to speak.
So, whaddayathink?
I've used unarmed and swordsman because those are in-game the two classes I've played so far (yet to do the other two) and because I am experienced with both forms of martial arts in real life.
Braglor
Sat Jan 31, 2004 10:41 am
#3
erh... did someone forget about the encumbrance system dealing with this issue exactly? 
GTOfire
Sat Jan 31, 2004 10:59 am
#4
an unarmoured fighter will evade/dodge exactly as much as an armoured fighter, also,the special moves by themselves are by far outclassed by using default attacks and shrugging off hits with your armour,
so right now it's not a choice between two different advantages, but a choice between an advantage and a disadvantage.
Braglor
Sat Jan 31, 2004 11:36 am
#5
huh
GTOfire wrote:
so right now it's not a choice between two different advantages, but a choice between an advantage and a disadvantage.
annelid0
Sat Jan 31, 2004 12:30 pm
#6
From what I gather, the point there was that not using armor is a disadvantage, plain and simple. This is true, as any wookiee can tell you. Sounds like this is an idea to lessen the gap a bit by extending the negative side of armor beyond HAM and into defensive moves.
Encumbrance simply isn't big enough to offset the enormous difference between being armored and unarmored. A good set of buffs negates all but the most extreme HAM costs.
Though I agree with the basic principle that armor should probably lower your ability to dodge and so forth, I think it would have minimal impact on the game.
The idea of block taking 1 condition from your weapon is truly horrible. Pikemen block, fencers dodge, swordsmen counterattack. Block's broken enough already by allowing damage, it certainly doesn't need to be made even worse by breaking our weapons too.
Otherwise it's a nice idea, but I don't see it doing very much.
Encumbrance simply isn't big enough to offset the enormous difference between being armored and unarmored. A good set of buffs negates all but the most extreme HAM costs.
Though I agree with the basic principle that armor should probably lower your ability to dodge and so forth, I think it would have minimal impact on the game.
The idea of block taking 1 condition from your weapon is truly horrible. Pikemen block, fencers dodge, swordsmen counterattack. Block's broken enough already by allowing damage, it certainly doesn't need to be made even worse by breaking our weapons too.
Otherwise it's a nice idea, but I don't see it doing very much.
GTOfire
Sat Jan 31, 2004 12:58 pm
#7
thanks for the comments.
you missed two points in your reply mate.
First off, decrease counter-attack/block etc for armour like you did see, but also increase it for no armour. As a Teras kasi Master I hardly evaded or blocked.. ever.. I'm a 2113 swordsman and I hardly ever counter-attack. In order to make it 'balanced' (always relative heh), that needs to be bumped up so if you put an armoured TKM vs a non-arnoured TKM it's a toss-up on who would win.
Secondly, counter-attack/block/dodge it all goes into one melee defense pool. A pikemen won't just block, they'll counter-attack or evade just as much. There could be some specialization, it's easier to block with a staff then with your bare hands, and easier to divert a blow with your hands then with a knife of course, but the base plan is the speed stat taking over all of these defense mods.
I haven't experienced pikeman weapons rapidly degrading personally, I have yet to become a master pikeman, but I'll take your word for it. It was an idea that sounds logical to me, though the amount is hardly realistic of course. Smash two pieces of metal against one another and they're gonna change shape. Technically you oughta get your sword smashed to bits after blocking 20 hard strikes, but that's not good for gameplay, so let's not go there
Every weapon class would degrade equally because their chances of blocking are equal. Perhaps a decay rate for blocksimilar to using overchargeshot on a gun.
95M3
Sun Feb 01, 2004 1:01 am
#8
Great Idea I know for a fact trying to dodge a blow with 70lbs. of plate mail armor is soooo much harder(slower) than with just clothing.
It is in most games that your encumberance decreases your abillity to evade attacks.
/signs on the dotted line to pass said measure.
95M3
Sun Feb 01, 2004 1:09 am
#9
Well I just had an idea to add to this.
If every combat item armor and weapons had a speed factor asigned to it based onits dammage and or HAM. Since a Powerhammer is slow but does high dammage this would make sense as well as 80% composite having higher HAM.
Call it combat encumberance and adding heavy armor and heavy weapons will add to this encumberace as well as being able to decrease it by doing the opposite.
A high combat encumberance will limit your dodge/block whatever bonuses and a low one will add to it.
Sounds good I think.
95M3
Sun Feb 01, 2004 1:10 am
#10
Dam edit button or lack there of :}
Speed factor = Combat encumberance
GTOfire
Sun Feb 01, 2004 1:20 am
#11
heh, that'd be the ideal situation, but it's so ideal and elaborate in the extra database work and changes to balance that need to be done I'm only prodding and poking with the base system for now heh. Good idea though, that'd be a great future update for this system (though of course it's unlikely this whole thing will find it's way to the people that code 
)
)
annelid0
Sun Feb 01, 2004 12:34 pm
#12
Indeed, I had missed the pooling of dodge/block/counterattack into one "speed" pool. It would at least benefit pikemen, since block sucks. With your current skills though I'm not sure you realize just how often these things already fire off at high levels.
At master pikeman, I block a LOT. Enough that it's not an exaggeration to say that if my weapon lost 1 point of condition per block I'd need a new one every night. This is why I say there wouldn't be much impact from increasing the frequency. Especially with CoB active, there's not a lot of room to increase. Block being what it is, even if I did it 100% of the time I'd still take 50% of the damage directed at me, but that's a rant for a different time.
The bigger question is why should an unarmored fighter be just as good defensively as an armored fighter? Being a wookiee, I'd have to be a fool not to welcome such a situation, but it would relegate all armor to newbie status.
Armor's intended advantage is to increase defense while its drawback is limiting offense (via HAM costs). I'm not sure this really happens due to the prevalence of buffs, but that's the idea. The idea of players blocking/dodging/counterattacking less frequently with heavy armor on makes perfect sense, but its advantage shouldn't be negated. Armor needs to provide a strong defensive advantage, otherwise there's really no point to having it in the game.
What I could see being a viable alternative would be increasing armor's offensive penalties. Not just by HAM costs, but by lowering to-hit and offensive stats. Allow the heavily armored to be strong defensive tanks capable of absorbing a lot of damage, but let the fleet-footed unarmored be the real damage-dealers. That is, limited defense but heavy damage for unarmored, heavy defense but limited damage for heavily armored, a sweet spot somewhere in between. You could be the best tank or the best damage-dealer, just not both at once.
In PvP, it would come down to whether the unarmored could hack his way through before the armored lands enough strong hits to take him down instead of who has the better armor. To me, this would provide a much more satisfying difference between armored and unarmored fighting than just having a different type of defense.
At master pikeman, I block a LOT. Enough that it's not an exaggeration to say that if my weapon lost 1 point of condition per block I'd need a new one every night. This is why I say there wouldn't be much impact from increasing the frequency. Especially with CoB active, there's not a lot of room to increase. Block being what it is, even if I did it 100% of the time I'd still take 50% of the damage directed at me, but that's a rant for a different time.
The bigger question is why should an unarmored fighter be just as good defensively as an armored fighter? Being a wookiee, I'd have to be a fool not to welcome such a situation, but it would relegate all armor to newbie status.
Armor's intended advantage is to increase defense while its drawback is limiting offense (via HAM costs). I'm not sure this really happens due to the prevalence of buffs, but that's the idea. The idea of players blocking/dodging/counterattacking less frequently with heavy armor on makes perfect sense, but its advantage shouldn't be negated. Armor needs to provide a strong defensive advantage, otherwise there's really no point to having it in the game.
What I could see being a viable alternative would be increasing armor's offensive penalties. Not just by HAM costs, but by lowering to-hit and offensive stats. Allow the heavily armored to be strong defensive tanks capable of absorbing a lot of damage, but let the fleet-footed unarmored be the real damage-dealers. That is, limited defense but heavy damage for unarmored, heavy defense but limited damage for heavily armored, a sweet spot somewhere in between. You could be the best tank or the best damage-dealer, just not both at once.
In PvP, it would come down to whether the unarmored could hack his way through before the armored lands enough strong hits to take him down instead of who has the better armor. To me, this would provide a much more satisfying difference between armored and unarmored fighting than just having a different type of defense.
DisKreet
Sun Feb 01, 2004 1:58 pm
#13
w00t then wookies could get by easier with out armor...sort of...
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